Picasso Portraits: Volume One
by Astarte's Rapture
Summary: Vague and abstract glimpses into the minds of the infamous men of Easy Company. A series of drabbles and oneshots. Please Review and Enjoy.
1. Whiskey Reflections

**Author's Note:** This is my first attempt at a Band of Brothers story. This will be a series of drabbles and one-shots focusing mostly upon a single man. I hope to maintain full respect for the men of Easy Company, for I know that the series is based upon real heroes of World War II. I do not own Band of Brothers. All feedback is appreciated, greatly! Please be kind enough to review!

**Picasso Portraits: Volume One**

Main: Private Roy Cobb

Chapter One: Whiskey Reflections

It seeps down the depths of my throat as smoothly as bare flesh upon freshly laden bedroom silk. The mud tinted flask of whiskey has been the comforting arm about my shoulders over the latter part of the week, burning my inner body as a match - a chilling contrast to the hazy atmosphere of Haguenau. The damn sun has not shone for the better part of our stay, for it seems to have been permanently captured behind a thick legion of murky clouds. There has been nothing but frosty, steel grey. No colors. No blues or greens, just the various opaque shadows melting between the blasted buildings with splintered doors squeaking upon their rusted hinges and roof shingles scattered variously about the slushy, dingy snow . . . I think even the snow has transformed into a tint of slate.

Melancholy floods every corner of this lifestyle. It makes me wonder how any breath of hope can be caught in a place like this, where the biting air grips my lungs with an iron fist, squeezing tight. Breathing becomes shallow, but maybe that is just a natural reflex to the ritual moments when I pressed my head against the damp soil as obstreperous bullets played tag overhead, or perhaps, during the muted walks through open fields, crouching, barely filling my lungs with oxygen lest I let it out too loudly. Then, the strident shrieks would begin again, and again, one of us would kneel beneath another body whose life was stolen by phantoms hidden beyond sight.

It was always a game, a fucking game with twists of chance and dice of predictability. When would the bullets aim to tear? When would their piercing call resound in our ears as we dived as a single wave to the ground? Yet, we all knew that once they set their yellow eagle eyes upon our panicked hearts thumping out of control, our heads racing with fragmented thoughts, and our backs turned blindly, that their aim was true. And the fields would stain to sanguinary rust as faces became still mid-cry; sometimes, the raven pupils still focused upon the sky, and their faces so eerily pallid and frightened.

Damn these memories! Why won't their faces disappear? Why?

We're in a warm house, now. Hell, we even have beds, complete with comforters and blankets, and showers. Heated showers. I remember the first few seconds the warm water gushed over my body; I closed my eyes for moments of true peace in what seemed like a lifetime. It was heaven.

Perhaps they thought that times of bliss would eradicate the past, the crazy bastards. Even after the steam evaporated from my body and into the bitter dimness of the town's defeated streets and smashed alleys, I still saw his face. It was as if he was laying before me once more . . .

Wailing!

Crying.

Convulsing . . .

Clawing for a familiar hand, a comforting face, seemingly deaf to our protests and words of calm. We were powerless! His legs jerked, his hips twisted, and his hands trembled uncontrollably. I was helpless, feeble; there was nothing left but to watch as his tears whirled with blood and streamed down his youthful face. He was just a fucking kid whose last moments were spent drinking his own life fluid in a room painted in obscurity.

I want to forget; I want to erase it all into a fuzzy mist with each swig of my bittersweet libation. I would die a self-crucifixion to put it all out of the recesses of my brain's remembrances! I am sick of existing in nothing but an adumbration of an uncertain future.

The only colors are ones sensed – the whiskey as it ignites my throat in autumn tones of red and orange - warmly searing - a welcomed discomfort. It spreads through the expanse of my body like a mad-eyed brush fire, the liquid crackling, unlike the pitiful empty fireplace, but it seems none of the others dare to notice. They sit contently together, sharing in yet another moment of action that slipped from my fingertips and into a freezing river of sputtered curses. Damn boats . . . damn them all . . .

The liquid swirls in the filthy flask, and I inhale its disgusting scent. It does not matter, for I am, after all, simply the madcap man that somehow makes a decent soldier. I can kill without sympathy for the Krauts who called us out to fight only to glue us to frozen foxholes with artillery fire as a nightly lullaby. Call me selfish in caring for myself . . . I will toast to that. I'm just the battered bastard with a whiskey bottle, frayed like a spool of yarn. But, I can kill and not regret . . . right? I can fight.

I don't feel . . . I don't want to feel anymore. Numbness is a treasure sought fervently for, but never found to last longer than hours of fuzzy recollections.

So, who is the scruffy mirage in this whiskey mirror? His eyes are swollen with oozing malice grown over hellish days and nights. Insomnia is but a close relative, and paranoia, a half-brother of his. It all pieces together as one, a mass of anguish bred in a man called to act more, or less, than human. I have not figured out the answer to such a riddle. Is it less than human to murder, or more than human to survive? Animals, the lot of us.

We are only surviving, breathing one moment at a time. We walk on tip-toes inwardly, but any bystander will see nothing but an unshaven, stalwart man chapped by the jeers of Mother Nature and scarred by the shrapnel and bullets of our hated nemesis. The abhorrence boils my blood, and I want to spit upon them all for what they have done; for the countless heart-aches and the rapid palpitations of a heart straddling the fine line between sanity and psychosis. How I loathe them!

Thus, this potable is my choice of self-mutilation. Each gulp springs the hope that sweet dreams, merry dreams, will come in the drooping of my eye lids. That the wails of the dying, the familiar moans of aide, will fade, but I know it is so very futile. I will battle with fury, my barbed knuckles white, and choke the enemy . . . make them solicit my mercy! My compassion! I murder them again and again for each time they murdered a part of my soul! They will rot with me one day, whether beneath an engraved tombstone, or a stone-less mound. Either way, there will be vengeance . . . in my hallucinations.

"Whatcha looking at, Webster," I spew in a drunken stupor as the man's piercing oceanic eyes bore into my own. They see, they analyze, and they judge. The man who failed to bare his share of a burden now sits content for a supposed successful mission; he sits so very comfortably as one of us . . . again. His eyes shift and he gently bites the side of his cheek, lost in his own contemplation. Satisfied, I mumble, "Yeah, that's what I thought, college boy." Rich ass!

The world spins in whispers, and their hushed voices mingle into inaudible murmurs. Familiar faces bleed to a collage of torment. So much agony. Such are the memoirs of a soldier. We move and go nowhere, kill and die within, and we survive but fail to live.

We are worn faces trapped within tattered places, with little hope of going anywhere to escape. Escape is just a fool's word. There is no escape in war. There is just release . . . in a dose of morphine, a prostitute's warmth, and a whiskey bottle.

They mourn him, but I don't miss him, yet. I consume another swig, and another.

I can almost swear that it tastes like salty tears. Their faces have no expression. They are as blank and numb as the grey we are all encased within, a world without emotions, just pursed lips, blood-shot eyes, and sweaty brows. There is nothing left for me to do but to conceal my head and drown the sorrows for a moment or two, because what remains is only the present. No tomorrow lingers in my mind. I am not guaranteed a tomorrow, so I never attempt to piece together what the following sunrise may look like. The irony of it all is overwhelming.

The phantasms flash before my eyes, and I remember them all. After all, nightmare is just another word for yesterday's reality. Every time, I see my death. The irony of it all! Those are the greatest moments I've ever experienced! It is so hard to express, so hard to take in, and it so often feels we are puppets running in a circle, lost in the gravity of a world that long ago found itself without logic and reasoning. But, we still run because it is all we know . . . it is all I know. And . . . I am tired. Damn tired. My legs cannot move any longer, my arms are breaking under the weight, and mentally . . . even a shrink could not comprehend my thoughts without losing his own sanity!

The room is quiet, but I know we are silently screaming inside. They weep for him from within, and I gulp deeply the fiery liquid. As long as it stings my veins, I won't miss him. Not yet. No . . . not yet.

And the reflection of myself stares into my eyes with each moment the flask is raised to my mouth. It is amazing how one can love the image, yet despise it passionately, all at once. The monster battle lines created looks nothing like the infamous Grendel or any other of Webster's mythological beasts learned in some Harvard literature class. They don't gobble tiny villagers buying morning eggs or breath bolts of fire. The monster grows in the numbness I've learned to create – the ability to remove emotion – it leaves me so very bare. I'm naked in the cold atmosphere of loneliness.

"Are you drunk, trooper?" Ah, yet another man so akin to Webster.

One with barely any experience in the delicate art of destruction. He saw one man die . . . one man! No, a boy. He saw a boy die. A boy sobbing for his life, pleading to whatever God exists to himself remain a minute part of this forsaken world. He saw the pitiful reality that is war, where boys become petrified corpses while ragged men like me seek the comfort of dirty glass and potent poison to flush the thoughts away. He still sees in color, not accepting that the only tone against the darkness is the rivers of crimson flowing from bodies.

And now, he sits beside Sergeant Martin as if they have been brothers of war for ages. I am the one standing beside the freezing cobblestones of this make-shift home, slightly separated from the collection of men I have known for years more than he.

"Leave me alone." For once, I just want to be alone. Let me be! Allow me these few hours to drown again and again with this bottle. Maybe, the memories will finally die, too. May they be buried six feet deep, deep into the depths of Hell, where I pray they burn! Burn to ashes! Become nonexistent, just ghosts of what once was.

I spit, my stomach drops, and I stare deeply at the whiskey looking glass. The swampy reflection in my cherished bottle of temporary release reveals the creature within me, a hell-bound shell of a man broken somewhere along the lines drawn in scarlet, composed of still hearts and severed arteries.

Those pools of brown were not nearly so hollow long ago . . . and I quaff the last portion in earnest reprieve.

"Answer the question." His voice is stern, just like a fucking officer. A bitter and fleeting smirk tempts my lips. The kid's education precedes him, but he knows nothing. Naïve. Innocent, even. I glance at the blackness of his eyes. My chest clenches and my knuckles whiten upon the bottle. Familiarity, too much, rests in them . . . they are too much alike . . . just versions apart. He's still young, mind and soul. He has hope; maybe, he will not be broken like me. He could live through this war, not survive, but live!

I shake my mind and tilt the empty bottle for any trace of remaining liberation from his face, his gurgles, and the agape angle of his lips as he attempted to solicit aide. Too many faces! Which is which? Does it matter? They haunt me in the solitude of my thoughts!

I won't miss him, yet!

I won't!

"Yes, sir, I am drunk, sir . . ."

No, I won't miss him . . . not yet . . .


	2. Paper Flowers

Author's Note: Special thanks to _captain ty_ and _Lipoaccipitridae_. I appreciate the reviews so very much! And yes, Lipoaccipitridae, there will be some one-shots that focus upon religion, but I thought it would be a lovely challenge to attempt to write something that focuses and tries to capture a part of each man in Easy Company. I hope I did not imply that this would be an actual storyline as much as it will be chapters focusing upon a specific man at a particular moment. Sorry if I did. However, you can expect more on Roy Cobb as I have found him to be the most interesting man to write. Enjoy, and please review!

**Picasso Portraits: Volume One**

Main: Private Patrick O'Keefe

Chapter Two: Paper Flowers

Sometimes, one just cannot live in a world composed of paper flowers . . .

The bright eyed, curly headed youth covered his lips with a perspiring hand at the horrible stench emitting from beyond the ghastly barbed wire cage. His firearm hung loosely in his free hand, still unused. All posture revealed his shocked state, for his rigid form bore no movement aside from the ever increasing rise and fall of his chest, and he took on the petrified stance of one whose known world had suddenly collapsed into a morbid concoction of illogical reasoning and defied ethics. He blinked, stunned, motionless, lost in his own mind that found itself immobile in grasping the extent of the obscene sight he was witnessing.

The remaining men of Easy Company bumped and jostled him as they scrambled to fetch any spare rations to spread amongst the living corpses. Their eyes, too, were large ovals of puzzlement, yet by sheer routine they carried out the ordered actions with a calm ease and with as much orderliness as humanly possible.

Never had he seen, let alone heard, of anything like the spectacle spewed before him. Certainly, he had expected to at one point witness his fellow comrades perish upon the battle fields, some in a heroic manner history would record in print, and his training had done its best to make him familiar with the potential carnage and devastation a single bullet could do to the fragile human anatomy, along with the mutilation stored in a solitary grenade or shell. Photographs and video clips of what lay ahead remained omnipresent in his memory. Even as he jumped to join the men of Easy Company as a niggling replacement, he imagined the worse of what he may see. Wails and saline rivers haunted the picture screen behind his eyes; thoughts of men with half-severed limbs and wounds gushing crimson fluid rested in his most horrid predictions of what he would face. He would be prepared to face such gruesome scenes, or so he liked to believe, that in the hailstorm of fire and artillery he would stand stalwart and unconquered by terror or cowardice.

Yet, none of the depictions or veteran tales of past battle scars and dire conditions of trench foot, hypothermia, sweltering heat, or extreme exhaustion, among other things, had coached him to react to this. He only knew weaponry and metal to shred human flesh and inflict torment and death . . . they never trained him for this . . . this . . . monstrous display.

With an ashen face and aghast expression, the private dazedly shuffled past the bodies, Most were long dead, rotting, and decaying with a repugnant stench. A fraction crawled upon the bone-dry soil, some on all fours in their weakness and frailty, with others grasping onto structures for support, and still others tentatively stumbling like toddlers towards their saviors.

He watched as Sergeant Frank Perconte moved down the main path between the rows and rows of . . . houses? He was unsure what to call the poorly construed and cramped structures that dotted the camp. At his first inspection of their interior, he nearly emptied his stomach of its contents as the foul odor mingled with an all too evident humidity and dampness which clogged his senses. His eyes burned and watered as he ventured a step more into the building. Wooden make-shift beds littered each wall, and upon them, packed tighter than sardines, were ghostly men gasping for oxygen, squinting at the light, scuffling deeper into the darkness for some unmerciful refuge, and withering in a hunger-pained motion; for some, it was their last few minutes in such a state. The young private watched with a trembling hand and sweaty brow as an aged man with sparse clumps of grey hair stared at him before gripping the edge of the bed, choking and seething as his eyes widened in a horrific shock, and just as quickly as he gurgled unknown words to the boy, his hand fell limp, eyes still fixated upon the intruder.

In a panic of uncertainty, the private rushed from the place of moaning ghosts and into the bleak daylight once more, nearly colliding with the Italian sergeant. The tanned and ebony-haired man had snapped critically at the replacement, "O'Keefe, watch where you are going will ya," before roughly shoving the private aside, muttering, "And make yourself more useful while you're at it. Give them a little help here . . . fucking replacements . . ."

Recalling their first encounter as the sergeant continued his study of the camp, O'Keefe closed his eyes. The short Italian had reprimanded him for expressing anticipation in jumping into Berlin only to sternly lecture him for humming in boredom after relieving two men from their posts.

"Hey O'Brien, relax would ya? I'm trying to read," he nipped. The private rebutted with a correction of his name, even offering him his nickname. " . . . my friends call me Patty." He had declared it with a small pride and with a sweet recollection of his companions waiting for him back at home. He continued his casual humming, never knowing the tangent a simple tune would off-set the sergeant into. The man made a forbidding eye-contact as his voice rose in a sharp, annoyed tone. "Do you know why no one remembers your name," he barked in an austere ignorance of the private's reaction. "Its cause no one wants to remember your name! There are too many Smiths, Dimattos, and O'Keefes and O'Briens who show up here replacing Toccoa men that you dumb replacements got killed in the first place. And they're all like you," Perconte hissed in disgust. "They're all piss and vinegar. "Where the Krauts at? Let me at 'em. When do I get to jump into Berlin?"' His voice mimicked the childish antics O'Keefe, with embarrassment, mentally noted he himself was guilty of not more than seven minutes prior. "Two days later there they are with their blood and guts hanging out. Screaming for a medic, begging for their goddamn mother. You dumb kids don't even know you're dead yet." He had moved to turn away, his stomach in knots. Surely, he thought, he would know he was dead . . . how does one not know they are dead? Perhaps, he reasoned to himself, in the numb failure of realizing the devastation of the wound, men still sought the hope of a medic's touch . . . "Hey, you listening to me? Don't you know this is the best part of frickin' war I've seen? I've got hot chow, hot showers, a warm bed. The way I see it, Germany is almost as good as being home. I even got to wipe my ass with real toilet paper today. So quit asking when you're gonna see some action, will ya? And stop with the frickin' love songs!"

He did not say another word for the remainder of his duty despite any attempts by the sergeant to make small-talk. Perconte had settled himself against the sandbags, contently reading _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ while O'Keefe was left to actually keep watch. While he normally would have allotted the honor of being trusted such a responsibility swell his ego and enliven his letters to home, he instead found himself to be quietly lost within his own thoughts, struggling to comprehend the sergeant's words, even as his eyes emptily stared at the line.

It was not more than a few days later that the same man had screamed into his face,"There is your fucking war," when passing a newly raided building in which Allied soldiers removed three German boys, only to execute them on the spot right when the vehicle he rode upon passed. His face had paled as their heads spurted blood and watered the brown grass with the crimson liquid. Their faces haunted his dreams for nights on end, ceaselessly.

They were kids . . . just like him.

The boy's faces had been scrunched in terror as they were made to kneel. One whispered prayers underneath his breath, tears trickling down his cheek. Another even attempted to scoot away from the enraged men as the first boy fell to the ground, his blood spraying the others. It took mere seconds for there to be three still and lifeless bodies abandoned, their pockets raided of any valuable or monetary items worth keeping. The greenness of his experience in war beamed brightly as the men in the truck shrugged in a nonchalant and unfazed response, ignored it altogether as being as commonplace as a tree, or amusedly grinned at his emotional involvement to the murders and his lapse in judgment for empathizing with the hopeless Germans.

_There's your fucking war . . ._ the single sentence echoed keenly in his mind, even as he slowly followed Perconte through the camp.

He studied the rather height-deficient man as he traversed the broken paths, guiding the prisoners forward to where they may receive water and a warm blanket. Unbeknownst to the reputed sarcastic and aloof sergeant, O'Keefe witnessed the momentary exchange of salutes as Perconte passed a man emerging from a shelter. The elderly being shakily lifted his hand to his forehead with the slightest of smiles upon his lips, and in the first time the private had witnessed the sergeant lower his emotional guard and express sympathy and sincerity, Perconte returned the gesture, his eyes flooding with a secretive pity.

"So, this is war," he mumbled. "This is war . . ." They never prepared him for this. Where were the textbooks and photographs? The pamphlets and instruction manuals? How was it that every man appeared to know what to do, how to react, but him, who simply wandered aimlessly in a poor attempt at making himself useful while internally he was wailing with madness, on the verge of a mental cessation? Why hadn't they taught him how to care for bodies so starved that he could count their ribs? Why had he never heard stories of men bound within a macabre prison where sunlight altered its brightness in a morose sorrow over the land enriched with the nutrients of corpses? The sinister cruelty of human beings had never graced his thoughts over the course of his training, after all, it was machines that killed soldiers, wasn't it? It was never the fingers and sharp eyes guiding them . . . just metallic bullets and searing acid that pierced the heart, snipped arteries, and invaded the brain.

The private squeezed past two soldiers carrying an ailing young man before bumping into a formidable officer he had heard horror stories of that would rival the most frightening legends; however, he never knew if any of them held an ounce of truth or were simply tall tales made to cast the boy into discomfort and unnecessary tension for a few decent laughs from men who saw themselves as his superiors, even if they possessed the same rank as he. "Sorry sir," he hushed to the serious Captain Speirs. The man nodded in acknowledgment before returning his gaze to a passing prisoner who held a bandaged hand to his forehead, attempting to shelter himself from what little light pervaded the tarp of overcast clouds.

"What do you make of this, Captain," inquired the youth.

Captain Speirs shrugged loosely. "I'm not sure . . ." He glanced at the replacement for a hint of who he was.

"O'Keefe. It's O'Keefe."

"Right, none of us are sure what this place is, but we will find out as soon as we can communicate with one of these men. A prisoner's camp, most likely. Do you have any spare rations, private?"

"No sir."

"Very well," he pointed towards a crevice in the ground near an area of smoldering buildings. "Go over there and see if there are any more men who need aide in transporting themselves to where the medics are. Carry them if you have too. You are to help them, do you understand?" Underneath his breath the private detected the cursed grumblings of the Captain. "Goddamn, they are walking skeletons . . . damn Krauts . . ."

"At least they are alive," murmured the solemn replacement.

Captain Speirs scoffed at the young boy, his lips falling low in pessimism. His raven eyes bore into the youth's copper ones. "You call this living, private?" The stern officer surveyed the camp with the detailed eye of an eagle scouting its prey. "Is it living, private, or existing?" Without saying a word more, he marched away from the shamed youth towards Major Winters and Captain Nixon. Joe Liebgott had joined them with a thin man who habitually rubbed the nape of his neck as he commenced communicating to the men the intense history of the ground upon which they now paced, each man in his own personal quandary.

Resuming his unsteady stride, he directed himself towards the grey, steaming smoke still rising in long coils of snake-like forms from the remains of what once were buildings. As he neared the remnants, a dissimilar scent from what he had choked upon in the huts greeted him with its vile perfume. The nearer he came, the stronger the intensity of the redolence became. It was not until the tip of his boots touched the edge of the slight incline that the emanation flooded his nostrils, leaving his tongue lapping the roof of his mouth at the sour and putrid taste.

Covering his mouth once more, he knelt along the edge in an endeavor to retain his bearings. Survivors . . . what survivors were there for him to assist? A handful of partially burnt bodies framed the edges of the slop, and at the very bottom of the incline rested the last smoldering pieces of timber. An odd pallid residue painted the ground in its color; it was neither black nor white, like the cinders he was familiar with after a long campfires. He elongated his arm and grasped a handful of the substance in his hands. Running his thumb across its contents, he pinched the powder, rubbing it between his fingers before allowing it to return to the ground. In a stupor, he shifted down the slope to where a body lay.

He had never been so close to cadaver before; near enough that the minute blemishes of its face revealed the adolescent age of the boy. The form was sunken in, his skin no longer fitting over its skeletal frame, but rather, barely draping across it, sagging at the cheekbones, stomach, and what he assumed would be the legs as well. To his aphonic realization, the manifestation before him only retained portions of his feet. Toes seemed to have melted away in a grotesque manner only described in Grimm's fairytales. His eyes knitted together in wonderment, but as he knelt beside the boy's legs, the very same residue told the answer to the riddle that had been plaguing him; retreating upon his hands and feet from the calamitous revelation, the blubbering replacement tripped, his cheek landing beside the body, and the ashes kissing his lips. The private laid still, breathing deeply, his heartbeat rapidly pulsating. He gripped his chest and sobbed as his eyes met the slightly opened ones of the boy. A barely evident tear strained from the corner of his eye as he gripped a handful of the dirt, pulling himself upright.

He sat there, beside the bodies, his uniform coated in the last remains of those unfortunate beings that perished with howls of agony and whimpers of death's acceptance. The firearm he utilized as a crutch as his mind raced uncontrollably for some reasoning as to why he was sitting upon a graveyard. The scent no longer stung his eyes, but to the passing soldier, it would have been deemed the cause of the private's swelling eyes. He wiped the tears away, his body trembling ever so gently.

_So . . . this is war?_

Corpses with mouths agape as a final testament to their distress - Prisoners oddly crippled and distorted by some unspoken and even more unfathomable torture – a secret plot of land surrounded by the delicate trees of green and gold, watered by tears, and fertilized by their ashes in an atrocious display of the darkness of the human heart.

_So, this is war?_

It was an uneven trade for the reality of the world – his simplistic gullibility. How he longed to return to the moments where war was but a rumor and Death a fated friend who knocked at the ripe age of ninety-nine. Not eighteen . . . not twenty. It was a gamble with loaded dice. He gripped his head frantically. The beating of his heart thudded in his ear drums, and he wondered if his own could become so calloused that the smoke of evilness would blacken it. He searched for an answer to the corrupt display, burrowing deep within every lesson he had learned for the correct solution.

"O'Keefe?"

His name was so very distant. He blinked, but he felt worlds away from the sergeant's voice.

"O'Keefe?"

With a great effort, he turned his head in the direction of the voice. Perconte's eyes lifted at the sight of the boy, whose cheeks were red with the effort of not showing emotion. Never had one looked so lonely and abandoned. The private turned away from him, staring back at the still crisping structure. The sergeant's footsteps died away as he continued his patrol, forsaking the replacement so that he may grieve in a rare privacy.

The private sat there for what seemed like hours, the body of the boy beside him . . .

And in the solitude of his own arms, he allotted the tears to fall, one by one, down his still childish cheeks without risking wiping them away, lest they evaporate in an already surreal world. He prayed for warmth as the sun he had always remembered to shine as a guiding lantern dimmed in the distance, veiling itself with smoke and ash, forsaking him within a cold atmosphere of death. He mourned for the tattooed beings surrounding him . . . he mourned for the ones who would live forever scarred by nightmares . . . and he lamented for himself . . . a soul trapped in the body of a stranger . . . seeing through foreign eyes. Shivering and wet with salty drops, he clenched his eyes shut, willing to go back to the time of amusement parks and movie theaters with beautiful brunettes, to green valleys and the scent of autumn, to never wilting flowers of magenta, and to a time when he believed in everything with an optimistic naïveté of an untainted adolescent who knew nothing at all . . .

But sometimes, sometimes, one just cannot live within a world composed of paper flowers . . .

* * *


	3. White Forest, Hollow Tree

**Picasso Portraits: Volume One**

Main: Edward "Babe" Heffron and Medic Ralph Spina

Chapter Three: A White Forest and Hollow Tree

As the specks of white continued to fall once more, the man stirred in his sleep. The body beside him, adorning a ruby tinted cross against dirtied white cloth glanced down upon the man whose clammy cheek rested against his shoulder. His eyebrows knitted together as if in some form of silent agony, a nightmare he could not escape, his eyelids moving in a frantic pace, and lips quivering. Despite the freezing temperatures, the man wiped away the tiny beads of sweat dotting the sleeping man's forehead.

The flap of cloth protecting them from the falling flakes lifted lightly as a familiar face appeared, sending dim rays of moonlight upon their pale and unshaven faces. What was at first glance a dimly shadowed figure hovering upon them soon revealed beneath the light to be the face of a sullen and weather-beaten man with anxiety lines creasing his forehead. The dark-eyed Cajun leaned into the make-shift shelter, easing himself beside the dozing body.

"How's he," he beckoned gently.

"Not so good 'Gene. Kid barely spoke a word after they came back."

"Been asleep long?"

"Not more than half an hour. God damn this is getting old, 'Gene. We're going to have more guys dying of depression or suicide than by Kraut artillery if we stay here much longer," the medic hushed to his comrade.

"I know, Ralph," Eugene sighed, "but we just got to make do with what we have. Keep an eye on the men, watch them, it's all we can do out here." The sleeping man jerked suddenly, causing Ralph to place a calming hand on his shoulder. "What do we do about him," he gestured with a nod to his side.

Eugene breathed heavily. "Just stay with him for awhile. I'll stop by later to check on you all. I need to find some scissors." Ralph nodded and watched as the Cajun began to disappear behind the tarp. "Take care of yourself, 'Gene. No telling when they're going to open fire." The figure nodded, and once more the men were submerged in the quiet darkness, the only sounds coming from their shallow breathing and the sudden gusts of wind rattling the naked trees surrounding them.

Ralph lightly dozed as the hours passed. His head ached and body itched. One eye opened at the annoying tingling on his hip and he groaned. "Damn ants," he muttered. At the cursing of the other man, the red-headed youth beside him narrowly opened his eyes, blinking the sleep away several times over.  
"Hey Babe," Ralph breathed. "How ya doin'?"

Babe pushed his cheek away from Ralph's shoulder and slumped against the cool soil wall. His cheeks hung tiredly, pale, and considerably tighter than when he first arrived. Ralph studied the young man's appearance, frowning sourly at the weight that was always lost by incoming replacements. The boy's hair was disheveled and stuck at odd angles, dirt smudging his face in various areas. In any other circumstance he would have grinned at the brown coating the boy's nose from his sleepy stirrings against the protective dirt shelter, but he simply held out a small handkerchief to the boy. "Wipe your face some. You'll feel better."

Mechanically and without thought, Babe brushed the white cloth against his skin, feeling the sleek and soft material. He ran it over his perspiring brows and down the slope of his nose, eyes closed, nostrils breathing in the scent of temporary cleanliness. He allowed the cloth to pause at his lips before handing it back to Ralph with a muffled expression of gratitude. The medic tucked the cloth away and sighed deeply. Glancing at the boy, he saw his eyes glaze over in a salty mist.

"It wasn't your fault, Babe," he whispered, reaching his hand out to pat the youth's shoulder. The boy batted his hand away.

"Like hell it wasn't," he cried, swallowing a sob. "He was just a kid – a fucking virgin! I let him die!"

Ignoring Babe's attempt to distance himself from human touch, Ralph shuffled closer to the boy. "No it wasn't, Babe. We all wanted to get to Julian, but there was no way. If you tried, Babe, we would have had just another casualty. I know it's hard to accept, but there was nothing you could do to bring Julian back."

The man let out a sob, biting his lips furiously. Ralph clenched his shoulder tightly and allotted a silence to pass between them. Several sobs passed before Babe inhaled the night air deeply, exhaling in shaky breaths. "He was so scared," he whispered, shivering. Without speaking, Ralph nodded and rubbed his shoulder, urging him to continue.

"He got hit so fast, and he was just right there, just right there in front of me. He kept looking at me. Oh God, there was so much blood . . ." He shut his eyes tightly, the scene unraveling before him again.

_The woods were calm and quiet, clothed in the fine drapery of falling snow. The whiteness coated every tree branch and the atmosphere was thick with a false peace. Their boots crunched in the snow below them as their bodies kneeled closely to the ground, hands lightly grasping the trunks of sleeping trees. Their eyes, shadowed by the heavy overcast clouds, peered from beneath their protective helmets, rapidly darting from one end of the forest to another, studying, _

_watching. Their breaths were trailed by longs puffs of barely visible steam that rose as noonday clouds until vanishing into the air. _

_The red-headed youth walked slowly beside the ill experienced boy. His eyes remained fixed on their surroundings while the younger's head constantly peered upwards at the tall and imposing trees. They slid down a slight slope beside the remnants of a monstrous tree trunk. The youth ran his hands along snow coating the bark, his weapon hanging absently at his side. The silence was broken without warning. _

"He just laid there . . . the ground was turning red. He kept reaching out his hand to me, and I couldn't grab it! He was too far away . . ."

_The red-headed boy screamed the youth's name as the boy collapsed on the ground. He watched in horror as the red liquid oozed between his fingers, spilling onto the ground, soaking it in its crimson rainbow. The sunlight gleamed against the mixture of colors. "Julian," he screamed. "Hold on!"_

_The boy's eyes widened in shock. He lay on his back, choking, coughing, and unable to breathe. The beautiful sight of the trees against the cloudy sky spun rapidly in his mind. His hand clawed at his throat, the metallic taste flooding his mouth. Tears burned his eyes as he struggled to move. His head slumped to the side, meeting the red-head's own wide expression of terror. The boy reached his hand towards him, begging him, pleading with him to rescue him. The shriek of gunshots deafened their ears. The bullets pounded the trees and scarred the ground around them._

"_Julian," he screamed again, unsure if the boy would even be able to hear his voice. He attempted to scurry towards the boy, but the shower of bullets created a barrier between them. Again, he tried. And again. The men beside him pulled him back, shouting words that sounded as _

_foreign as the enemy's tongue. "Julian," he cried. "Just hold on! We'll come back, okay? Just hold on!"He grasped the dirt as the men tried to pull him away. "We can't leave him!" The boy gasped for breath, reaching out his hand to him, wincing as the bullets paraded around his head. The fountain of blood spewed from the corners of his lips. The boy watched in a glazed daze of death as he was pulled away, still shouting, bitter tears of disbelief and anger dripping from the corners of his eyes. The words, "Hold on," lingered in the air as the men faded from sight, leaving the youth to lay in the open grave of white, breathing his last to the chanting of enemy artillery._

Ralph soothed Babe, silently reassuring him that he did all he could do to help the young replacement. "He shouldn't have died like that," Babe mumbled.

"No one should," Ralph spoke, "but they do."

Babe's tear-stained face stared at Ralph. "Why?" For once, the stubborn youth succumbed to a moment of innocence amidst a world of shrapnel and carnage. The broken man brought his knees up to his chest and rubbed his sore calves.

The medic paused a moment before leaning against the boy. "Because we're stuck in a world where everything is glass, Babe. Fragile, I suppose. We're like glass chess pieces in this white forest, hiding away from everything that could shatter us. It's like a game, Babe. We play it so long that even if it does not make sense, we still play, because we're too numb to feel anything different. We just hold our breaths, hoping it won't be our last while praying it is, trying to be safe within our own selves, hiding in our thoughts. That's just how things are. Someone always loses in a game."

The youth said nothing for a long while. The falling snow made feathery thuds on the tarp above them. The wind cooed through the forest and every once in a while the beating of wings could be heard. Both men knew that above them was a cloudy sky, but that every once in a while, themasses of grey and black would part, and the distant twinkling of stars would shine through.

"Deep shit," said the youth, blankly. The medic laughed softly. "Yeah, guess so."

"You're right, though," he whispered. The medic hummed to himself. "Yeah?"

Babe nodded while closing his eyes, yawning deeply and huddling nearer to himself. "Yeah. We all try to disappear into our dreams," he sighed. "Try to hide in them, try to find some hollow tree to hide in, waiting to be found. Like hide-and-seek when I played with my sister. But we always wake up back on the front line, realizing it's our turn to move again."

The medic rested his arm across his shoulder. "You want to know something, Babe?"

The young man grunted in reply. "What?"

Ralph laughed airily. "I think I'm going to miss the winter."

Babe stirred and brought the thin blanket against his chin. "Fucking crazy," he muttered, "Go to sleep, Ralph."

Both men fell into a dreamless doze, always partly awake, ready to hear the calling of their turn to move.


End file.
